The Crimean peninsula seems to have been studied up and down by archaeologists, but it is here in recent years that secrets have been revealed that have puzzled researchers for many years.
One of them is associated with the fortress city of Chufut-Kale, towering over Bakhchisarai. The fortress was erected on a separate plateau, cutting off by sheer walls to the surrounding gorges. The only isthmus through which you can enter the city is blocked off by a high wall. The walled city looks completely impregnable. It has only one, but a very serious drawback - there were no natural sources of water in the city.
Chufut-Kale existed for many centuries, more than a thousand people lived in it. The last to leave it in the middle of the 19th century were the Crimean Karaites. Until now, their kenas temples have been preserved in the fortress. The Karaite elders remember the delivery of drinking water to the fortress through the Eastern Gate from the Yusuf-Chokrak fountain and through the Small Gate along a donkey path from the Ka-rai-Chokrak spring. The townspeople also used precipitation, mainly snow, with which they filled their numerous pools in winter. But such water could not save the inhabitants of the city during the siege. There was water on the territory of the city, though it was hidden deep underground. This is how an old legend tells about it.
At the time of the Golden Horde, the city of Chufut-Kale was ruled by the cruel khan Toh-tamysh. Many treasures were kept in the deep cellars of the Khan's palace. But Khan Toh-tamysh considered the young girl Ja-nyke, whom he hid in his harem, to be his greatest treasure. No one knew that a terrible disease lurked in her chest.
But then the trouble came. Chufut-Kale was surrounded by enemies. They knew that there was no water in the fortress, and decided to wait for Tokhtamysh Khan to open his iron gates himself.
There is no water, and the days go by. And people began to fall like autumn leaves. But Tokhtamysh Khan did not spare the people: “Do you think I will open the gate with my own hands? If I don't have enough stones, I will throw your heads on enemies!"
Once a shepherd boy made his way to Dzhanyka's harem. And he told how little children die without water, and no one can save them. And then he says: “I know where there is water underground, but I cannot get through to it - I have broad shoulders. And you are thin as a twig, you will penetrate everywhere. You will crawl into the crevice and get water from there. And I will take it to the reservoir. All night long the girl and the boy carried water in small wineskins. And there was water in it, as in a small sea. And when the sun rose, Dzhanyke felt that a small bird flew out of her chest. The girl fell to the ground and died.
When people came, they saw a reservoir full of water, a dead girl and a crying shepherdess Ali.
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The story of the water that Dzhanyke took from a deep crevice was included in the book "Legends of Crimea". And no one suspected that the beautiful legend was true. Occasionally, there were scant mentions in old books that there were some systems of hydraulic structures under the city. This information was negligible. But there were six people: A. Kozlov, Yu. Polkanov, Yu. Shutov, O. Grivennikov, A. Baba-jani G. Katy k, who believed the legend. Their attention was attracted by a small depression 35 meters south of the Pendzhere-Isar fortress wall - "Wall with a window". In August 1998, they made a prospecting excavation here and on the second day they opened the mouth of the backfilled well.
In 1998, it was penetrated into the depth of 6.2 meters, in 1999 - more than 15, in 2000 - about 9. Today, the total depth of the well, which once supplied the inhabitants of the fortress city with water, is 45 meters. Its lower part has a domed extension, along the walls of which there is a gentle spiral descent with rare steps. At the bottom of the lower hall, which the well had turned into, two large oblong depressions were discovered, probably drainage baths, and niches for lamps were found on the walls. Water from large cracks in the rocks entered the streams and through them first merged into one of the baths. After filling through the drain sill, it was poured into another stone container located directly under the inlet well. From it, the water was already raised to the surface. Judging by the 8-meter silty-clay layer,water filled not only pools specially cut into the rock, but also the entire lower floor of the system, where it could accumulate about 115 cubic meters. The well served both to raise water and to ventilate the entire system.
The unique hydraulic structure Chufut-Kale was finally found. Another secret of the Crimean peninsula has been revealed. But after it, another, no less exciting, immediately appeared: who and when created this, unparalleled, underground well with a depth of almost fifty meters? And did it only serve to supply the city with water or did it perform other functions as well?
According to the authors of the discovery, the main purpose of the hydrotechnical structure near Chufut-Kale was to supply the fortress with water during a long siege. But, in their opinion, the sacred version of the appearance of the structure has a right to exist. Otherwise it is difficult to explain: why is the lower hall of the system so large? Its area reaches 45 square meters, and its height is 2.5. To carve out such a hall in a monolithic rock, it was necessary to do a gigantic and useless, from the point of view of utilitarian water supply, work. Indirectly, the possible cult use of the Chufut-Kale underground system is evidenced, in the opinion of its discoverers, that it was located near the famous monastery and the remains of other ancient Christian structures. They also do not reject the use of a system consisting of a well and an adjacent underground passage,for a secret hideout. From here, the soldiers could unexpectedly attack the enemy from the rear, who broke through the lower tier of the fortress defense. This assumption is confirmed by the legend of the Crimean Karaites about the prince, who had the ability to simultaneously appear with his detachment both on the walls of the fortress and behind enemy lines.
The authors of the discovery speak very carefully about the time of the creation of the underground structure. They were unable to find any documentary evidence or archaeological finds that would allow even an approximate answer to this question. The underground system could have been created by the Khazars or Byzantines and used in the subsequent periods of the subordination of the peninsula to the Golden Horde and during the period of the Crimean Khanate.
But, perhaps, the time of the creation of the Chufut-Kale dungeons can be attributed much further back in the centuries, and the Khazars, and then the Karaites, only used and partially changed it. The following interesting fact can indirectly testify to the more ancient time of its construction.
In Crimea, after the October Revolution, a scientific expedition worked for a long time and purposefully studied the underground natural and artificial structures of the peninsula. It was led by Professor Alexander Barchenko. And it was organized … by the department of Felix Dzerzhinsky to fulfill a special task of the all-powerful chairman of the Russian Cheka. Professor Barchenko promised the Chekists to find places on Earth where the remnants of the wisdom of long-disappeared peoples have been preserved or where extraordinary abilities could arise in people. Therefore, on the personal order of F. Dzerzhinsky, the scientist conducted expeditions in the caves of the Crimea, in the north of the Kola Peninsula, in the Altai mountains.
In Crimea, the expedition was carried out in the vicinity of Bakhchisarai, including in Chufut-Kale. She was the first, and, judging by the fact that the research continued and did not spare funds for the subsequent expeditions of the Cheka, they found something on the peninsula. Unfortunately, all the members of the expeditions and the people involved in their organization were arrested in 1938 and shot in the basements of the NKVD. Official reports of A. Barchenko's amazing expeditions also disappeared there. And in them one could really find a lot of interesting things unknown to traditional science, including about the Chufut-Kale dungeons.